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British Counting Schemes

July 27, 2007

I’ll be the first to say, as a veteran of the first Intifada, that the Israeli Defense Forces have a problem no less pervasive than America’s Los Angeles or New York City’s police departments in terms of how they treat Palestinians. (I mention these two as those US departments manage populations of civilians larger than Israel does the West Bank, only with better trained officers.) This does not eliminate reporters (seems that this is my theme of the week) from reporting factual information.

For the information of any reporters, a squad is five-eleven soldiers. 3 squads to a platoon. 3 platoons to a company.

The BBC believes (apparently in consultation with J.K. Rowling, their military correspondent) that a company of soldiers fits in a taxi. To set the record straight, neither Israelis, nor Palestinians, have managed to magick vehicles to seat the minimum of 35 or so soldiers necessary to be involved in the reported incident, where an apparently innocent Palestinian was shot by Israeli troops.

No, I’m not making apologies for illegal actions: any Israeli soldier using lethal force against a civilian should be held criminally liable. And if more than one soldier is involved, then conspiracy charges and the appropriate investigation should be launched.

Of course, this presumes that there’s some kind of reality to the BBC’s claims. No Israeli news or government sites, at the time of this writing, point to this issue at all.